Chapter Six

 

 

The faint crackle of the rowboat nosing against the theoretical side of the river made Liam grin with a kind of fierce eagerness. The Paladins might have managed to surprise them – he was still wondering how they had managed to get black powder explosives to trigger under the water – but now it was their turn. The Babylonian Navy, according to the Blinking Stars, had already started up their way along the river. The Monodeists, according to the admiral, had put up a fairly stiff fight, but they had been harried on one flank by his ships and on the other by the Morrigan’s Kiss.

Figures, Liam thought. Biggest naval battle on Purgatory, and I didn’t get to see it.

Now, though, they were cruising up the river and would reach their chosen landing site shortly. That site was within artillery range of the Endless Mine, but it also provided the biggest, clearest, least wet part of marshland for the Cross Guard to fight up. The spearhead of the forces would be a mixture of goblin and lizardmen irregulars, supported by valkyrie air squadrons and the big guns on the naval ships. All good.

Less good if they arrived on a beach facing down long guns filled with steel grapeshot and cannon balls.

Thus…

“This way!” Tethis hissed, pointing. She slipped off the side of the rowboat and sank up to her chin in the muck. Her arms flailed above her head, the magical spell that she had called around her fingers crackling and sparking now that her attention was distracted. Simone solved the issue by simply reaching down and tugging Tethis up by the back of her shift. Tethis looked rather embarrassed by the way Simone placed her up on her shoulders. But Simone had the best height of the group and, unlike Liam, she had boots and two feet.

Not that Liam was having too much trouble with his false foot. The metal and clockwork contraption usually worked well enough that he could forget that it was a gift from Hephaestus and not genetics. But having it pop off and almost drown him was enough to force his brain to think about it every time he stepped forward through the swamp.

“Ticks,” Meg muttered. “Leeches. Eels. Basilisks.”

“I killed one of those,” Simone said, casually, walking with one hand holding her rifle above the water, the other pushing fronds out of the way. Tethis had her breasts mashed up against Simone’s head – and being the recipient of more than a few Tethis breast-smotherings in his time, Liam had to admire Simone’s ability to remain focused.

She could be straight, you know. That might help, Liam thought. Well. Attracted to men. That is. Or a professional. Try being that.

The Liberty, which remained floating near the middle of the brackish, branch strewn river, grew more and more invisible as the party of forward scouts stepped through the woods. The surrounding darkness grew thicker and thicker as fronds of dangling leaves cut off the sunlight, leaving only the muggy heat and humidity of the swamp. Buzzing insects zipped and whined past Liam’s ears as he held his firearm over his head. Simone followed Tethis’ directions, while the two lizardmen guards that were coming along as extra muscle fanned out to the left and right. Meg and Liam were in the middle, as protected as Neriad, who strode through the swamps as confidently as she had through her ice palace.

Liv took up the rear with Tanye, though Tanye lagged more because she was the one lugging the Predator drone’s control case.

Finally, the water started to grow shallower and shallower. They emerged onto a spit of land that led to a steeper slope. Tethis pointed her palm forward and whispered a quiet spell. Her palm flashed and she nodded and then squeaked as Simone casually slung her off her shoulders and set her on her feet.

“Where’s the entrance?” Liv asked, leaping out of the water and shaking herself dry. Neriad waved her palm and the muddy water that remained soaked onto her blue thighs sluiced off her body as if brushed off with invisible squeegees. Liv glared at the demigoddess and snarled. “Why didn’t you do that earlier?”

“You didn’t ask,” Neriad said.

“The entrance is right...” Tethis paused, then muttered her incantation again. “Here.”

She slammed her foot down on the ground. The dark green grass she stomped on didn’t make the kind of noise that Liam would have hoped for. He would have loved to hear a muffled thunk, the kind of noise that meant they only need to dig a little bit. He rolled his shoulders. “Anix, Vazt, Meg, Liv, lets get ready to start digging.”

Neriad stepped between him and Meg, brushing the two of them aside. Liam had seen a few people offer to help more imperiously. But they had all also been members of the Dodekatheon. He glanced at Meg and Meg shrugged a bit, her wings mantling. Then Neriad thrust her palm forward. Water rippled and bubbled behind her, flowing out of the swamps. Her eyes closed and she thrust her palms downward. The water grew thicker and thicker in the ground beneath Liam’s feet, turning what had once been solid ground into mud. He was about to draw back when a crackling, grumbling noise rang out. Ice fanned through the mud, crystallizing into a hardened sleet. Simone and Tayne both used their boots to keep their feet. Meg had to grab onto a tree to keep from slipping, while Liam dug his false foot into the ice and grabbed Tethis before the gobliness could spill onto her rump. The two lizardmen hissed with clear irritation.

Then Neriad placed both palms together and thrust upwards, hissing as she did so. Her teeth clenched and her muscles stood out in intense relief, sweat running in rivulets along her forearms. A chunk of ice roughly the size and length of a mini-van rose from the ground, leaving behind a perfectly rectangular hole in the mud and grass. The ice had trapped earth and dirt and plants and even roots in its grip, shattering what had been caught between the rectangle and the rest of the earth. Neriad made a flinging motion with her arm and the chunk of ice smashed into the marshland behind them, vanishing with a splash.

The exposed rectangle of ground led diagonally towards a vertical door of black metal that looked as if it had been built yesterday. Liam recognized the shimmering patterns of glowing lines worked around the edges of the door as Ancient architecture.

“Well,” he said, slowly. “Thanks, Neriad.”

She smirked, lifting her chin. “We may enter now.”

She stepped forward, clearly expecting the door to open for her. Instead, her face and chest mashed into the door. She rebounded, exactly like a shopper running into the Exit Only side of an automatic door at a grocery, and sprawled in the rapidly melting ice/mud slurry that was reasserting itself. She rubbed her nose, then growled, lifting her hand. Water flowed along her arm, turning into a shimmering spike of ice.

“Wait!” Tethis cried out. “Hold your horses for five seconds! I’m hacking the door’s entrance codes!”

“I see no ax!” Neriad snarled.

“Why does the shortstack from Lord of the Rings know what hacking is?” Tayne whispered to Simone.

“I stopped asking these questions a day after I arrived,” Simone said, sounding long suffering. Tethis’ fingers worked as she crouched down, a glowing interface appearing before her fingertips. Liam took a moment to toss aside nearly two years of mental conditioning and forced himself to look at what she was doing with fresh eyes. With fresh eyes...it was growing increasingly easy to see the geometric shapes and holographic lights of ‘Arcane magic’ for what it was.

Accessing an interface.

Which led him to wondering: If the aliens that built Purgatory had actually designed their machines to, say, shoot fire at people, or if it was a side effect of the long degradation of their computer systems? He immediately saw a way it could work. In the movie First Contact, Captain Picard had used the holodeck, a system built entirely for recreation, to create a tommy gun and blow some space zombies away. Maybe every combat ‘spell’ had some utilitarian purpose, but they were being used wrong.

Or right.

Liam was snapped out of his musings by the doors hissing open and revealing a stairwell leading into the Ancient’s facility. Neriad stood to immediately start marching forward but both Liv and Meg grabbed her and dragged her back as Vazt slashed his sword through a nearby sapling. With sapling in hand, the skinny lizardman underhand tossed it through the door like a grenade. They couldn’t see past the darkened shadows of the door.

They could hear the clink and clatter of metal hitting the floor.

“Oh, right,” Neriad said, shaking her head. “Toss another after I have blessed it.”

Vazt muttered under his breath – likely grumbling about pushy goddesses. Neriad, in her infinite wisdom, ignored him. Instead, once a new chunk of still living wood was readied, she pressed her palms to either side of the wood. Vazt shuddered and hissed and threw the wood away as hard and as fast as he could before shoving his hands under his armpits. He continued to shiver and now his grumbling was quite audible: “Fuckin’ froze off my fucking fingers!”

The wood hit the ground with a nicely clacky sound. Simone shone her flashlight into the door and they could see the two chunks of wood next to one another. One was shimmering steel. The other was still wood.

Simone nodded.

“Can you make the cold field in a bubble around us?” Liam asked. “And have us not actually be cold?”

Neriad frowned. “I don’t...think so. Cold tends to carry. Even in my summer palace, I had to give thick carpets to my harem...” She looked down, pain flashing across her face. “To keep them warm.”

Liam sighed. “Well, then. I guess that’ll encourage us to keep a move on.”

“This shit is why I voted for the other guy,” Vazt muttered.

“That explains where his one vote came from,” Liam said, dryly.

As Neriad started to make slow gestures around herself, gestures that started to fill the air with mist and grow chill and chill. Liam tried to picture the Ancient nanorobots. In his head, they were tiny Aztek themed death scorpions. He pictured them flying into the cold and freezing solid. And he tried to let this thought warm him as he walked down the stairs after Vazt and Anix. The two lizardmen held their swords and their mage-lights up, illuminating the corridor before them.

“Looks clear. For now” Vazt said, grumbling.

“Also, we’re not dead,” Anix said, cheerfully.

“For now,” Vazt said, muttering under his breath.

Simone stepped down the stairs, followed by the rest of the group. Simone took charge with a casual confidence, directing the lizardmen to flank her, and the rest to stay behind her. Her voice was flat as she said: “And, lastly, if you see anything, say something. I don’t care if you think it was nothing. If you see a mouse, say something. If  you see a cute girl, say something. No wandering off, no exploring, nothing. We’re going to follow Tethis’ magic spell to the other exit and we’re going to get the job done. Understood?”

The rest of the party nodded. Neriad scoffed. “We’re not children.”

“No, you’re civilians,” Simone said.

Neriad nodded. Then she started. “Hey! I was in my father’s militia before I attained my new, lofty heights.”

Simone arched an eyebrow. “You were a hoplite?”

Neriad put her hands on her hips, thrusting her chest out as she stood proudly. But it seemed that she retained a modicum of self awareness because a few moments later, she clarified: “Of...a sorts. I provided magical assistance.”

“Then use that training and stay in the middle of the formation,” Simone said.

Neriad grumbled under her breath. But she did move to stand between Meg and Liam. Liam checked his pistol, clicked the safety on, then holstered it. The last thing he wanted to do was shoot himself, and he definitely didn’t trust a holster made for a flintlock to hold a 9mm Beretta without some issue. As Simone started forward, she kept her flashlight sweeping back and forth, checking the corridor with ease.

By now, Liam had visited two other kinds of Ancient ruin. The teleport ruins had been filled with traps and defense systems. The containment for the ancient monster thing had been a bit more crude and to the point: It natural caverns leading to the actual part of the lab that was built by Ancients. This place was more like an actual facility. There were side doors that remained shut and had symbols that glowed above each doorway.

“Liam,” Liv said. “The fuck is decanting?”

Liam looked at her. “Decanting?”

Liv jerked her chin at one of the symbol clusters on a door they were walking past. Simone, seeing them pausing, lifted her hand and the rest of the group paused.

“It says Decanting Chamber Ninety Eight,” Liv said. “I’ve never heard of a decanting.”

“It means to gradually pour liquid out,” Tethis said. “Usually wine.”

“Ancient wine?” Liv looked a bit intrigued. She stepped closer and the door hissed open, revealing another room. As she stepped in, Simone looked like she wanted to groan. Liam lifted his hand, trying to communicate: Hey, it might be important. Simone made a very obvious ‘watch checking’ gesture. Liam frowned – but then Liv jerked his attention over. “Holy fucking shit.”

The entire group clustered by the door at that moment, even Simone, despite her concerns.

Looking past Liv, Liam could see what her mage-light (she had kindled it the instant she stepped into the room) illuminated. He had to admit. Holy fucking shit was right. The chamber was roughly five hundred feet long and maybe twenty feet wide. Every five feet along the far wall sat a tube of glass, and within each tube floated bloated masses of muscular tissue. It looked, from the scales, as if someone had been trying to cultivate lizardmen and then set them to Arnold Schwarzenegger and forgotten to turn off the oven. Now, each tube was straining slightly with the masses of tissue.

Liv looked like she was about to step further into the room. Liam stepped forward, grabbing onto her. “Liv, don’t,” he said, quickly.

A garbled sounding voice spoke from the ceiling. It sounded like Sysminor’s voice, but it wasn’t translated. Liam had no time to wonder about why the translation spell worked on some Ancient writing and words and not others, because Liv jerked away from him and shouted at the ceiling: “He did not!”

“What didn’t I do?” Liam asked, drawing his pistol.

“Attack me,” Liv said, shaking her head. “Idiot clockwork automaton piece of-” 

That was when the first tube started to hiss open, filling the air with the gurgling of the liquid within. Liam breathed out a slow sigh of relief. “Thank god, it’s decanting the, uh, the warriors as an emergency defence protocol.”

“Why is that a thank god?” Simone asked, leveling her rifled as Meg pulled her sling from her wrist and loaded it. The faint whirr of her sling spinning cut through the air.

“Look at them there’s no chance-” Liam started, gesturing backwards.

“Liam!” Meg shouted.

“Oh balls,” Liam groaned.

Most of the masses of muscle fell from the tubes and simply splatted on the floor, twitching and writhing slightly before finally breathing their last. Several of them did not. Several of them managed to slowly uncoil, revealing heads misshapen and twisted by their long centuries of steady growth. Arms that were freakishly long and slabbed with muscles thicker than steel cables unfolded, with claws that looked blunt and stumpy and entirely secondary next to the strength that radiated from their misshapen, Liefeldian bodies.

“I never learn, do I?” Liam asked.

Simone lowered her rifle. “We light them up or not?” she asked.

Liam shook his head. “Flints!”

Anix and Vazt didn’t have to be told twice. They drew their flintlock pistols and fired. Smoke and flames roared as one of the shambling freaks staggered. The bullets struck scales and muscles, tearing great holes in the creature. It stepped another few paces, blood pattering onto the floor like rain, before it realized that it was missing huge chunks of its lungs and heart and died. But the three others continued forward. Liam was starting to get his pistol ready, irreplaceable modern ammunition be damned, when Meg let her sling loose.

The bullet she flung might not have been propelled by black powder. But she had decades of experience hunting with them (along with her usual favorite, javelins.) The bullet struck the eye of one of the roid-lizards. His eye burst like an overripe fruit and the back of his head painted the wall behind him. He took one step and fell, unable to even touch the floor with his snout due to his ballooned chest muscles.

That left two more, both of them picking up speed as they got used to their freakish bodies. Worse, their arms were reaching out, like grotesque great apes. Liv casually pushed Liam backwards, stepped forward, and drew both bronze swords from Anix and Vazt’s scabbards. The two, who had been focused on reloading their pistols, barely had time to blink before Liv casually ducked underneath one arm – she barely seemed to be moving, and yet she managed to dodge a blow that left the air whistling. She stood and brought the sword smashing up into the roid-lizard’s bulging throat.

His head hit the ground at the same time she had slammed the other sword into his buddy’s spine. She put the other sword-tip through the base of the last roid-lizard’s neck, then jerked backwards, twisting her blades so that the roid-lizard hit the ground on his back. He twitched, then breathed his last and Liv swept her blades in a quick arc, flicking the blood off them with a flourish.

Liam expected to see both blades a bit the worse for wear – bronze weapons on Purgatory were infamously bendable. But when the two lizardmen caught them from the air and Liv brushed off her hands, he saw Vazt test the edge on his weapon and hiss. “It’s sharper,” he said.

Liv smirked, slightly. “Those pukes would have been easy before I started practicing.”

“...right,” Liam said after a pause. The normal mixture of emotions Liv gave him during combat were roiling through him. Distinct, ball shriveling terror mixed with an intense lust that was hard to top. The fact that Liv seemed to know it only stoked his fires. He shook his head, then said. “How about we, uh, not investigate other rooms.”

“Good idea,” Simone said, quietly.

As the group started again, Liam overheard Liv whispering: “Some help you were.”

“I’m the one keeping us from being eaten by nanny robots,” Neriad snapped back. “This takes some concentration, you know.”

Liv scoffed.

 

***

 

Bella was looking at the guts of the Predator drone and beginning to think that maybe what she remembered from a crash course on basic electronics wasn’t exactly enough to really cover everything required to fix one of these things.

“Maybe they were attacked and that’s why the drone stopped communicating?” Xapanos suggested, his voice soft. Nervous.

“Maybe...there is some damage here,” Bella said, slowly. “Corrosion is beginning to set in – these things aren’t meant for humidity.”

“They’re not exactly portable either.” Xapanos shook his head. “I’m shocked you fit one in even a crate of that size.”

“Yeah.” Bella sighed. “Kinda wish we hadn’t brought one. I mean, I personally objected to the...”

“The what?” Xapanos asked. Bella paused. Things remained...awkward between them. The fact that everyone in camp thought that they closed the tent flaps to, uh, do the nasty didn’t help. She wondered what the Paladins would say when they came back. The local guards might watch them closer, but the Paladins knew Xapanos. They knew how Ares was keeping him under his thumb. Would they see him cheating on his wife with her as a sign that he couldn’t be controlled by threats on her life? Bella’s stomach knotted. As if she needed that on her conscious.

“The what!” Xapanos said, again.

Bella blinked. “Huh?”

“What objections did you have? I thought your whole kingdom would be interested in getting Liam Vanderbilt back. He was some kind of noble lord back on Earth, wasn’t he?” Xapanos asked. “He had the iPhone, that longsword. Plus, he became the ruler of Babylon.”

“Oh, no! No!” Bella shook her head. “Liam Vanderbilt is just some nobody college student from California.” She paused, then looked at the drone. “Purgatory, though...”

Xapanos stood straighter, his arms crossed over his chest. “Wait, wait, wait. If Earth is a place that can give a nobody student a magical library that can hold thousands of books, why in Hades would you spend so much gold and silver and Predator drones on getting him back? Why would you be interested in Purgatory? Until Liam arrived, our books were on papyrus.”

Bella chuckled. “I, uh, like that you use that as a metric.” She smiled, shyly, looking at Xapanos. Then she carefully took her thoughts about his exposed, muscular chest and dragged them back onto the subject. “No, Purgatory is a treasure trove. The crystals you use for magic is some kind of highly advanced power source. Those alone could solve the energy crisis overnight. The nanites in the Endless Mine can revolutionize...well, literally everything. Once we know how they work.”

“You’re here to conquer us...” Xapanos whispered.

“No! No! No!” Bella lifted her hands, shaking her head. “No, America just wants a...” She paused. “A...”

“Foothold? Colony?” Xapanos suggested. “Fiefdom?”

Bella’s stomach knotted with a new, even more complex strain of guilt. And here, she thought sleeping with a married man would be the upper limit of things she could feel like garbage about. She flushed and tried to defend herself and her people: “Listen, if we were here to conquer, then I’d have never come along. The weapons and the soldiers were just for protection. We’re just here to learn. And the learning can help both sides! Like, uh, we can share our technology with you, like the way Liam has!”

Xapanos arched an eyebrow. “How many people live on Earth?”

Bella pursed her lips. Looked down. “Nine billion.”

Xapanos slowly sat down on the work table in the room. It creaked under his weight. “Nine billion.” He shook his head. “There are between five hundred and seven hundred million people on Purgatory, if the sages guess are right. You outnumber us eighteen to one!”

Bella chuckled. “Well, since getting here requires bombarding a rapidly rotating point of space-time with high energy particles, most of us won’t be coming?”

“That is a comfort, I suppose,” Xapanos said, quietly. Then his ears twitched. He lifted his head – and Bella heard the faint rustle of leather a moment too late. She sprang to her feet as a gauntlet clad hand yanked the leather flap of the tent up and in stepped Paladin Chastity. She looked streaked with mud and sweat and had a bit of leaves in her hair, but none of that mattered. She looked furious – and she immediately took in the room. Her eyes fell on the opened drone and then on Bella. Bella opened her mouth.

Her feet left the ground. She grabbed at the wrist that was holding her up.

“They. Knew. We. Were. Coming.” She growled, glaring at Bella. “And now one of my brother in arms is dead.”

Bella squeaked.

“We...” she groaned. “We  didn’t...warn them!” Her legs kicked slightly.

Chastity leaned forward, glaring at her. Then she dropped Bella. She fell and she found herself sprawling into Xapanos’ arms. Leaning into him felt scandalously good. But she was a bit more focused on Chastity as the Paladin loomed over her, her eyes filled with rage that was slipping closer and closer, moment by moment, from focused rage to something uncontrolled.

“You said that thing was a scientific device. And yet, communication between it and Neriad’s home led us to her.” Chastity stepped closer and Bella stepped back even further. “Speak a single lie and I will know and I will kill you where you stand.”

Bella believed her.

But…

Chastity wasn’t acting like someone who had been victorious. She didn’t sound triumphant. Which meant Liam and company were alive. She had to make a gamble...and Bella threw her dice. She lifted her head. “It’s a weapon. It’s called a Predator drone. When fully armed, it carries missiles. Uh, they’re like arrows, powered by explosives, and loaded with explosives. They could easily destroy this entire mine. There’s also a camera that can take pictures, uh, perfect images of distant places.”

Chastity looked from her to the huge drone, then back to her.

“Our very own blinking stars...” Chastity whispered.

“Huh?” Bella asked.

“Nothing,” Chastity said. “You will take the missile and get it ready for use.”

“Use? I...” Bella was about to point out all the ways that that made absolutely no sense and was impossible. Then she stopped herself. Working on the missile. It was a great way to blow herself and this whole place up. Which was technically a victory. But if she could get them to take the missile somewhere else, then use it, then explode, that was an even better victory. So, rather than point out the lack of a launch platform and the complex electronics required to launch and guide the missile, she simply nodded. “Of course, Paladin Chastity. Right away.”

Chastity narrowed her eyes slowly. “You’re keeping something from me.” She paused, then smirked. “You think we’re idiots, don’t you?”

Bella squeaked again. “No! No! Not at all!”

“We have God on our side, Doctor Cole,” Chastity said. “We have options that you can’t even dream of. Now...get to work.”

Bella nodded.

Chastity turned and ducked away.

Bella breathed out a slow sigh of relief. Then slowly, she started to realize just what was pressed against her rump. She flushed from toes to cheeks...and gently rocked her hips against the hard bulge that strained against Xapanos’ loincloth. “G-Getting a bit of a fear boner?” she whispered, quietly. The laugh that escaped Xapanos’ lips was choked. His hands went to her shoulders.

“It’s hard to resist with an ass like yours,” he whispered. He shook his head. “Damn. I shouldn’t have said that.”

Bella turned around. Her nose mashed against his chest and she inhaled his musk. By now, the scent of him struck her nervous system like a drug. The knowledge of his wife seemed to fade to background radiation and she dragged her tongue along his abs. Xapanos’ hand dipped under her shift, sliding along her chest and then cupping her breasts gently, then more eagerly. His finger found her nipple, rolling it as he kissed her forehead, nuzzled her hair. The stance was awkward. He had to crane his arm around and cup her breast upside down. It didn’t matter.

At the same moment, both of them shoved themselves away from one another.

Not, to Bella’s shame, because they had come to their senses and remembered what was the morally upright thing to do.

No.

They had leaped apart because the Predator drones wings were starting to whirr and click. Whirr and click. Whirr and click. Bella’s heart leaped into her throat and she remained stock still, turning flaps of elevation panels into Morse code, then turning Morse code into words.

“Nice show,” she said, slowly. “But we have a job for you.”

 

***

 

Liam shivered, his hands rubbing along his shoulders as he pressed his back against the wall of the Endless Mine and looked outwards towards light that seemed all the more distant and pitiless due to the blackness stretching between him and there. The mage lights were off and the only person who had a hope in hell of spotting anything coming up on them was Simone, whose NVGs cast a green light against her eyes. Liv lay on her belly, breathing steadily as she looked through the telescopic sight that was supposed to go on a marksman rifle.

“My field of vision is crap,” she muttered. “I’m using every trick Diayet showed me and I’m still only getting a sliver of the camp.”

“And what do you see?” Liam asked. Diayet, when she had been Anubis, had learned the arts of perception. Anubis had been able to weigh a human soul against a feather before sending them to their just rewards in the afterlife. That had, apparently, included a wide range of perceptive abilities that hadn’t reached the legends and stories on Wikipedia. Now, Liv was using what she had picked up from the former god.

And Liam just had to hope that that counted for enough.

“Well,” Liv said. “The four paladins Neriad chased off got back. I don’t see any stores of ammo down at the bottom of the mine. Those have to be at the walls. I can hear plenty of drilling...” She paused. “It sounds like the garrison here knows the shits coming and they’re getting ready to duck. Wait a fucking second.”

Meg snickered. “The best kind of second.”

“I see a cannon. Four of their camp laborers are holding it in place. One of those Paladins is working at it. He’s using some kind of metal pole to...” She paused. “The fucking what? He’s scraping the edges. They’re chipping crystal out something fierce. Why the fuck are they ruining a cannon?”

“They’re not ruining it,” Liam muttered.

“They’re making a makeshift firing platform for a hellfire, fuck,” Simone snarled.

“LT,” Tanye said. “If they try and fire a hellfire missile out of a cannon, even one bored to fit the missile, they’ll just plow it into the ground.”

“Not if the cannon is blessed with accuracy by Ares, the god of war,” Liam said.

Tanye slowly lifted her hands up to the air, then let them drop. “Or...fucking that!”

Simone checked her watch. “The Cross Guard are landing now. The artillery is going to start firing the instant their scouts spot them. Or, if I don’t miss my guess, the instant they have that cannon prepped. If canister shot’s going to ruin your day...” She shook her head. “We have to do something.”

Liam rubbed his hand along his face. “If Bella managed what you asked her to do...” He looked at Tanye. “Will you be ready?”

“Just give the word, Vanderbilt.” Tanye grinned.

“All right.” Liam breathed slowly in. “Neriad, there’s not a lot of water in that camp. Can you make do with the humidity.”

Neriad snorted.

“Okay. You and Liv handle the paladins. Simone and I go after the hellfire. Anix and Vazt, you protect Tanye. Meg? You get Tethis to the conventional ammo stores and...have fun.”

Meg beamed, then picked Tethis up under one shoulder. The gobliness looked a touch cross.

Liam nodded to Neriad. Neriad cracked her knuckles, rolled her shoulders, then pushed her palms forward. The cold bubble that had surrounded them for the past few hours rippled and then expanded forward through the darkness. Liam only saw it by the way the light ahead of them started to grow dimmer and dimmer as fog roiled out of the mine. He started to jog forward, drawing his pistol, flanked by his allies and friends. They rushed towards the cloud and out, into the suddenly cold air at the bottom of the pit.

The sounds of confused guards was intermixed with the bellowed orders of the Paladins. They knew what this meant.

“Attack! We’re under attack! To me! To me!”

A woman’s voice boomed out and then a golden flare of light exploded from the left. Fog rippled backwards. Liam could see the Paladin, standing with her sword lifted above her. Her other hand held a flintlock pistol. He snapped his gun up. She fired first. Meg, who was rushing past him, dragged him to the right with a jerk of her hand. The bullet grazed along Liam’s arm, searing hot. He yelped and his pistol went skittering to the ground.

The ratta tatta tatta of Simone’s assault rifle rang out. More muskets went off, adding smoke to the fog. The Paladin charged forward and Meg immediately forgot her mission. Instead, she dropped Tethis, knelt down, grabbed the pistol off the ground, and snapped it up while her wings fanned out. She leveled it at the charging Paladin, who immediately spun and twisted. Her legs pumped and she soared through the air, whipping past Meg. Meg tried to track her with the pistol, but the Paladin vanished into the fog and smoke.

However, seven or so guards were joining the fray. They carried maces and swords and bellowed the war cry of the Monodeists: “God Wills It!”

Meg held the pistol in one hand. She sighted down the range. Fired. One guard’s forehead suddenly gained a tiny red circle while the back of his skull exploded. Meg’s arm didn’t even more. She grinned, then fired. Again. Again. Again. Again. As fast as she could pull the trigger. Liam gaped as man after man after man fell, until there was nothing but a half circle of corpses, none more than two feet from the other, all of them sprawled with the boneless limpness of sudden death. One twitched slightly.

Meg blew some smoke from the pistol. “I like it.”

Liam shook himself.

Behind him, the fog was rippling, then collapsing. Most of it vanished, collapsing into ice shards that hovered like a swarm of hornets around Neriad, while Anix and Vazt stood back to back behind her, with Tanye ducking beside them, keeping the drone kit safe as she held a pistol in her other hand, looking for a clear target. Vazt knocked a sword aside from a charging Monodeist, then cut upwards, effortlessly slitting a femoral artery and sending the man sprawling to the ground, while Anix merely used his immense strength and weight to bash a shield aside, then brain the man with the pommel of his sword.

Neriad faced two paladins. One was the male who had been boring out the cannon. He hadn’t gone for his weapon – instead, he simply held the metal pole he had been using to bore it out like a staff. The other had gotten a mace and a sword, and both of them were at the ready. Neriad smirked, and for a moment, the tableaux held. Then, bursting from the fog, came Liv. She looked as if she had launched herself with all of her strength. The paladin with the makeshift staff spun it around and managed to get the weapon between him and Liv.

Didn’t exactly help, as both went skidding off, vanishing into the rubble and ruins that made up most of the ground level of the mine and added another explosion of dust and dirt to the confused mess of the battle. The other paladin knocked a chunk of ice from the air with his mace, knocked another in half with his sword. Neriad, though had a lot more ice, and she was getting better and better at hurling them. They flew faster and faster, and the paladin’s arms blurred as he tried, desperately, to keep up with the barrage.

He lasted two seconds.

Neriad laughed as the paladin sagged to the ground, transfixed by a dozen blades of ice. From the walls ringing the top of the pit, he could hear a roar of cannonfire.

Liam gestured to Meg. “Go! Go! Go!”

Meg’s wings flared and beat once, the wind adding an extra swirl of dust to the chaos. Liam realized that she had taken his pistol about two seconds too late. Liam had been in a few battles in his day, but few had been as confusing as this one. With the mist and the fog and the multiple superpowers on display, he felt more vulnerable, more useless than he had in his life. Then he looked past two guards who were rushing towards Anix, only to get knocked aside by the large lizardman’s weapons, and saw the hellfire missile that the Monodeists had fitted into the cannon. One of the surviving Paladins stood beside it, glaring about herself as her men wheeled the cannon towards the ramp. Cowering next to her was a terrified looking Dr. Cole.

And there, in the mists, trying to get a clear shot, was Simone.

Liam started forward, snatching a dropped sword from the ground, his heart hammering. “Paladin!” he shouted, hoping to get her attention. The Paladin didn’t even glance his way. She ignored him as she hefted her longsword in one hand, then blurred towards Simone. Her feet kicked up tiny sprays of dust as Simone pulled back on the trigger. Bullets sparked and flashed off the Paladin’s armor, causing her to stagger as if she had hit a wall. She fell to one knee, her head hanging forward.

Liam charged forward, hefting his sword. He brought it swinging down – aiming for the back of the paladin’s helmet. Her arm swung upwards in a mechanical arc and blade met blade and, not for the first time, Liam missed his longsword from earth. Delenn had been a good sword. Delenn wouldn’t have shorn in half on first contact with the enemy. It wasn’t merely that the paladin held a longsword made of steel – her sword also flickered with golden light.

Ares blessings made them faster, stronger.

Liam flung himself to the left moments before a golden flare of light shot from the tip of the paladin’s sword.

And able to shoot lasers. Right.

Simone was working on recharging her weapon, quickly swapping one irreplaceable magazine for another. The cannons were still roaring overhead, and he could hear war cries from the Monodeists and the Cross Guard, echoing down to the bottom of the mine. A sudden explosion rocked the wall and a cannon flew through the air, shooting straight at the paladin. She casually backhanded it towards Liam, who rolled quickly to the side. He felt wind tugging at his hair and heard the crunch of the crystal cannon striking mud and stone.

The paladin leveled her sword at him. It wasn’t glowing gold quite as fiercely as before. Liam stood, panting, ready to fling himself whichever way the paladin least expected. But her cold, pitiless eyes swung left and the tip of her blade skittered to aim directly at Simone. Liam reacted immediately. He leaped forward and the beam of light struck him in the gut. It felt like nothing for a moment. Then he landed and his entire midsection felt as if it had burst aflame. He clutched at his chest, hissing through the pain. His palm was cupping a charred hole, and he felt a radiating ache rush through his body.

Behind him, Simone toppled – a beam seared right through her chest.

The paladin smirked, twirling her sword in a quick arc. It caught the sunlight and flashed it in Liam’s face. His vision narrowed to a black tunnel as the paladin walked towards him. Her blade wasn’t glowing anymore, but it would do more than enough to...fuck this hurt. Liam closed his eyes, curling up into a fetal position. One hand slipped along his shin, to a leather strap.

He half expected the steel tipped boot’s impact to his shoulder.

The shocking intensity of the pain that roared through him at the kick was still more than he had expected. His vision went gray and blurry as the paladin stood above him, her sword-tip aiming down at his nose.

“Lord Vanderbilt,” she said, her voice sounding like it came from the bottom of a well.

“G’day,” Liam choked out.

The woman smirked, then lifted her sword up in both hands. She brought it driving down towards Liam’s head – aiming for his brain. Either shew as dramatic as fuck, or she knew about the stasis spell that Tethis cast on him as a matter of principle.

Using every bit of strength he had, Liam thrust his false foot up into the air, as if he was offering a new shoe to a customer. The sword tip slammed into the socket joint he rested his stump in, then skidded along bronze and wood, slipping between the cracks and joints. Gears groaned and snarled and the paladin’s grip jarred as her own strength played against her. Her hands didn’t open, but her sword wasn’t as tightly held as it was mere moments before.

Liam rolled. Flopped, really. His arm dragged her sword further off point, out of her hands, and onto his side. The flat of the blade slapped against his ribs and he finished his roll, pinning it underneath his chest like he was a wrestler.

“Liam!”

The sound of Tethis’ voice was like the sun coming out. A glowing dart of healing energy struck Liam’s back and he felt his life surging back to him. He thrust himself up and leaped away, like he was a sprinter on a track. It was an awkward lunge, really, since one of his hands was clasped around the steel longsword of the paladin and he lacked a foot. But he got enough distance to avoid her grasping gauntlet. He spun to face her and she snarled.

“You thief!” she said as Liam realized a downside to his plan. His stump pressed to the ground and he knew that a light breeze would knock him off balance. He set the tip of the sword down and managed to get his artificial foot off, but setting his stump there was enough to show that he definitely wasn’t getting much use out of the false foot. But at least he could stand there and not move.

Great.

But then Meg was at his side. She was streaked with soot and one of her wings looked singed, but she had the fierce grin of someone deep in battle adrenaline. She was holding Liam’s pistol. Well, Simone’s pistol. But who was keeping track?

“I like this thing,” she said.

“Great, how many bullets do you have left?” Liam hissed.

Meg leveled the pistol one handed and pulled the trigger. The paladin, despite her glare, despite her combat ready stance – weapon or no weapon – flinched. But the only thing that came from the 9mm was a loud click.

“Zero,” Meg said, looking more annoyed than scared. She started to fiddle with leavers and switches and dials.

The paladin started forward, her gauntlets crackling with golden energy.

Liam, his heart in his throat, tossed her the sword. The paladin caught it from the air, more by reflex than anything. She paused, holding the handle with one hand, the blade with the other.

Liam wobbled as he grabbed at his belt pouch.

Removed one of the last magazines on Purgatory.

Meg found the right lever. The spent magazine clattered to the dusty ground.

Her hand caught the magazine from Liam.

The paladin lifted her sword, which started to glow with a golden flames.

Meg lifted the pistol, sighted.

Pulled the trigger.

Nothing happened.

Liam had enough time to feel an intense sense of cosmic betrayal that he was going to die because of firearm safety systems before the paladin clasped her sword with both hands and charged forward. A sudden shadow filled the air as she started to swing. The paladin didn’t even have time to look upwards before a torrent of water poured over her body. It pattered off her mail and sluiced along her helmet and sizzled as it spattered and crashed against her sword. The sizzling noise was overtaken by the now familiar crink and crackle of ice rapidly forming.

The blade tip quivered an inch from Liam’s nose. The sword was mostly in the open air. Only the hilt and hands holding it were contained within the solid block of pure blue ice.

Neriad dusted her hands as she walked around the block.

“Told you I’d handle the paladins,” she said, smirking.

 

***

 

Bella had often wondered what she might do if forced to choose between her own personal safety and the lives of others. It was the kind of thing you read about in books and saw in movies. It’s easy to imagine you’d be brave and noble while sitting in a seat with a bowl of popcorn.

It’s a lot harder when you are on your hands and knees, choking on gunsmoke, looking up at a burly looking man hefting a heavy mace, bellowing at you: “Fire the magic! Do it! Now!”

The walls were pure and utter pandemonium. Winged men and women flew overhead, firing pistols and dropping bombs onto the soldiers on the ramparts. Those soldiers were armed with pikes and spears and wicker shields – which usually caused the bombs to roll off and over the edge of the wall to explode harmlessly blow – and muskets of their own. The constant crackle and roar of gunfire was intermixed with the screams and crashes that came when bullets found their marks. Men served cannons, but many of those looked like they had been knocked out when the main ammo dump was taken out.

The winged folks were only half of it. The marshy land beyond the cleared out area surrounding the fort was filled with an army in a uniform that looked faintly familiar. Red crosses on white tunics. But rather than marching with swords and shields, these modern Templars were carrying muskets and pushing light cannons into range. In the distance, flashes came from the almost invisible river. Every few seconds, those larger cannon shells smashed into the wall.

But this wall wasn’t a stone castle. It was an sloped rampart of earth and brick, so the cannonballs impacted with nothing more than dull thumps and expanding clouds of dirt. That left the remaining cannons free to fire on the assembling mass of cross clad soldiers.

There were thousands of men and women out there, ready to charge the place. To free her, if what Vanderbilt had said was true.

“Fire. The. Magic!” The guard snarled. “That’s what the paladins kept you around for, innit?”

Bella gulped. Escape and safety had seemed so close, before the chaos of combat had gotten her whisked away.

She closed her eyes, forced herself to stand, and then opened her eyes. She felt painfully exposed before the huge guard and the whining, whizzing bullets that were being fired by everyone in this battle.

“No,” she said. “Kill me if you want, but I won’t fire this missile at those peee-” The guard cut her off by smacking her across the face. Bella sprawled on the ground, gasping. But before the guard could start kicking or beating her, a voice called out.

“We have a better way!”

She rubbed her cheek and groaned in horror as she saw another guard – this one a skinny woman with a curved scar along her jaw – dragging…

Xapanos.

He winced as he was held under the sun. She could already imagine what was happening to his skin under that deceptive color. Soaking in radiation, focusing it, literally beginning to cook under the fierce sun that beat down overhead. He shook his head, his bright white teeth shining as he snarled: “Don’t help them, Bella!”

“You do it, or we start cutting off fingers,” the guard woman shouted, her knife pressed to Xapanos’ neck.

Bella looked from Xapanos to the cannon and the hellfire missile, then to Xapanos.

“F-Fine,” she whispered.

“What?” the guard with the mace bellowed.

“She’ll do it!” the girl guard shouted. “Thank god – they have lizards in that fucking army.”

The approaching army started to emerge from the forest, as if they had realized that the cannon-fire was slackening. Now that Bella was forced to actually listen to the battle, she realized that even she had noticed it subconsciously. Now the cannons were firing every minute, every two. Her hands shook as she gestured to the missile. “Load it,” she said, her mouth dry. Maybe she’d be able to think of something. Something clever. Something that would save her and Xapanos.

The guard knelt down, his muscles straining as he lifted the nearly hundred pound missile up, then set it, nose first, into the bored out cannon. It slipped in with a clatter until the rear of the missile stuck out of the muzzle.

“Does it need cloth wadding?” he asked. “Cannoballs do, but-”

“N-No...” Bella said, sounding dazed. “It’s...it’s good.”

She gestured. “Aim the cannon that way. Slightly...to the left...” She said, measuring with her eyes. “The magic, uh, curves. Now, stand back.” She nodded, quickly. The guard stepped back and stood to the left of Xapanos. Bella’s mouth felt dry as a bone as she looked at the cannon, at the guards, at the missile, at the approaching army. The front ranks were advancing in a ragged, skirmishing pattern. Well. Holy shit. They actually did have ambulatory lizards in the army. They were leaping in great, hopping arcs, moving in wild patterns to evade the incoming musket fire that continued to pour from the walls.

“Step, uh, a bit to the right,” Bella said, gesturing. The guards shuffled.

Bella reached to her belt, where she had stashed the modified radio. Liam Vanderbilt and his team had told her how to make it work during their communications. But she was pretty sure this wasn’t how they had planned to use the hellfire missile. Well. Best laid plans and all that. She gulped, prayed to any god that was listening, then twisted the firing control.

The missile roared and she leaped backwards in shock as the cannon flew backwards, smashing into both guards and shoving them over the wall with a scream. The wheels of the cannon caught on the edge of the rampart and the firing block smashed into stone, catching. This caused it to swing upwards, angling the missile into the sky. Now the ten feet of exhaust that was shooting out of the missile was aiming at the sky and Bella could sprint forward, grabbing onto Xapanos. He collapsed against her, one huge dead weight.

Since she had tackled him towards some stairs, this mattered less than Bella had worried.

Her shoulder and then back struck the stairs as the two tumbled down like a pair of rag dolls, until they sprawled in the dirt.

“Xapanos!?” Bella shouted, looking at her lover.

His eyes opened to cracks and he grinned weakly. “Ow.”

Bella leaned forward and kissed him.

At that exact moment, the dumb, hateful little mind contained in the hellfire missile decided that it had reached something that could be charitably called a target and triggered the twenty kilogram explosive contained in the warhead. Contained by a hardened crystal container, the explosion had two directions to go. The first was upwards and outwards, busting from the mouth of the cannon like a dragon’s roar. The second was downward, forcing past the weakened firing block. Flames swept along the wall, shrapnel whined outwards, cutting apart Monodeist soldiers as if they were in the world’s most efficient and yet most sloppy slaughter house.

A sudden silence started to settle on the battlefield as Bella broke the kiss.

Xapanos panted, softly. “What do we do now?” he whispered.

“I have no idea,” Bella said. But she was somehow smiling.

And above her, she could hear cries.

“Surrender! We surrender!”

A lizardman – one of the first to reach the top of the wall – lifted the banner of the Cross Guard and Babylon and waved it above his head, letting out a whooping cheer.

The Endless Mine was theirs.